The Great Upheaval: Modern Art From The Guggenheim Collection

Good evening contemporary art lovers!
A few days ago I went to the Guggenheim to see the new exhibition. Amazing!! The Great Upheaval: Modern Art From The Guggenheim Collection, 1910-1918. Curated by Tracey Bashkoff and Megan Fontanella, the exhibition is organized around 100 works representative of that era marked by the creation of the Blau Reiter, the World War I, the Cubism and expressionistic manifestations.

Dead in 1949, Solomon R. Guggenheim was an American businessman, art collector and philanthropist. He worked in the family mining business and founded the Yukon Gold Company. He retired in 1919 to devote his life to art. The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation (1937) which goal is to foster the appreciation of Modern Art and to encourage its development. Museum was designed in the mid 40's by Frank Lloyd Wright who was an American architect, interior designer, writer and educator. Guggenheim and Wright both died before the opening in 1959. Wright was a leader of the Prairie School (usually: horizontal lines, flat or hipped roofs, integration with the landscape...) and promoted organic architecture. In 1991 he was recognized as "the greatest American architect of all times" by the American Institute of Architects. The spiral design recalls a nautilus shell. Well integrated with the nature, the space organization and its light (there is a huge rotunda on the top) makes viewing and visits very easy.

A lot of works that belong to the museum collection are from Solomon's one. The Guggenheim Collection results from a combination of different privates collections such as the Solomon Guggenheim collection, the Thannhauser collection, the Panza collection or else the Hilda Rebay collection. The collection was also augmented with gifts made by the Robert Mappelthorpe Foundation and the Bohen Foundation. The collection isn't divided into departments devoted to specific mediums or eras. Exhibition features works made by 48 artists such as Umberto Boccioni, Marc Chagall, Fernand Leger, Kazimir Malevitch, Marcel Duchamp among others. My favorites are those made by Wassily Kandinsky and Franz Marc. Several "Eiffel Towers", made by Robert Delaunay are also exposed. And the painting that moved me deeply: Artillery Men in the Shower made by Ernst Kirchner in 1915.

Exhibition is arranged chronologically which makes visit more understandable. And it runs until June 2011.